Details on the Class Act - Part One - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com

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By PAULA SPAN
The New Old Age has been following the Class Act, the first national plan for long-term care insurance, since last summer, but the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and his staff began working on the current version of this plan in 2003. It was tucked into the Democrats’ health care legislation and thus, without much public attention, became law last month. Call it Mr. Kennedy’s final bequest.

The program underwent a number of changes during the health care debate, so some early projections are now out of date. And many of the details we most want to know have yet to be established by the secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, who is going to be one busy woman for the next couple of years.

But we do know the plan’s basic outlines, so I’ll try to respond to some of the many questions readers raised the last time we talked about this.

My sources this round include Howard Bedlin, vice president for advocacy at the National Council on Aging; the health economist Barbara Manard of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging; Jesse Slome, who heads the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance; and Connie Garner, who after 17 years is about to leave her job on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

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